Vivi's blood seemed to momentarily go motionless in her veins, and her breath froze in her lungs. It took several seconds for her brain to begin to work, for her blood to bump and send her heart racing into heightened rhythm against her ribs.

There were many things she could have asked, many things she could not possibly understand. Who and what was this man, what had happened to him, what was happening between them now? How had he known her name, and how could he have known that it was she and no one else who would happen to come across her now?

But she asked only one question, the first to form on her tongue.

"Why….why me?"

"Well…not you, exactly," the figure said to her quietly. Vivi didn't turn to look at him, but she could imagine all the same how desperately dark the hollows of his eyes would have drawn her in, had she done so. "Not you, but your blood."

The facts began to slowly click into place for Vivi then; five or more years of perusing horror movies and books had not left her clueless to obvious signs. Still, she could not seem to say the word out loud. There were only two possible creatures that would have both the gall and the conviction to voice a desire for her blood, and she made a hesitant guess towards the one that seemed less insane, though no less scary.

"You…you want to kill me. You're a serial killer."

"No, no, not at all, Vivianne," the figure countered, and Vivi heard a murmur of amusement in his tone. "I don't want to kill you at all. You may have reason for apprehension, but there is no reason for fear for your life."

Slowly, with every bit of the apprehension the man had observed, Vivi turned her head, just enough to see him out the corner of her eye. The wasted, rotting appearance of his face had not lessened; if anything, there seemed little left of him to address her at all.

"Look at me, child. You are a smart girl, a wise girl, and I know that you know what it is that you see. Do you truly think me human?"

His head tilted precariously on the withered stalk of his neck, as though in invitation of her response. Vivi bit her lip, shaking her head just enough for him to gesture the motion…just enough to acknowledge to herself. It was not possible for the thing without lips to smile, but she heard a smile in his voice as he continued to speak.

"Of course not. You may be young, and perhaps you have never seen one of my kind before, certainly not in my state of ruin. But you know what I am."

"Vampire," Vivi whispered, the word thick and nearly foreign on her lips. "You're a vampire."

Another nod, releasing thick tendrils of smoke that disappeared before quite reaching Vivi's form.

"I am. Not the type your kind has undoubtedly come to believe in, the type with wings and fear of garlic, and certainly not the fanciful sparkly sexual fantasies that girls your age seem to envision. My name is Leander. I know no other. I lost it over 200 years ago, and there seems no reason to adopt another. But none of this is important now, Vivianne. I am suffering now from a bad case of misguided effort in murder; as you see, a wooden object to the heart causes me considerable agony, but brings me no closer to banishment from this world. Exposure to the sun, however…that seems to be the one detail that your kind does have correct."

It was coming close to afternoon, the time of day when the sun would be strongest overhead, even in the relative shade of the alley. Vivi realized then that the vampire- Leander, he had called himself- must have been shielding himself as much as possible for hours now. Turning towards him more fully, cringing as she again observed the ruins of what little skin remained, she found her courage and spoke up again.

"S-so…so you're dying?"

"I may be," came Leander's raspy response. "I would have been able to endure until night, even cornered in this manner as I am, were it not for the injury I had received. My ability to regenerate from a wound such as this is weakened from the sun's exposure, and so I fear…that the extents of my abilities are now surpassed."

He paused, his voice dropping lower, but not enough for Vivi not to clearly understand.

"Unless you will help me, Vivianne."

He hadn't threatened her. His appearance was certainly scary, downright nauseating, in fact, and there did seem to be the barest possibility of threat in the way that he spoke. But he had not threatened her, had promised not to kill her. Was it possible he truly was not dangerous, at least not towards her?

"I'll…I'll get you help," Vivi mumbled, ducking her head down so she didn't have to look any longer on Leander's damaged face and neck. "A…a bigger coat, maybe, or an umbrella. Maybe-"

"No," he interrupted, no louder than before, but Vivi froze, every muscle alert. "No, Vivianne. That is not the help that I need from you. What I need from you requires more."

She should run. She should turn away from him and flee, with all the speed that she could force into her shaky limbs. She shouldn't stay to listen, shouldn't stay to watch whatever it was that might happen next, to risk whatever it was that Leander the admitted vampire, dying or otherwise, seemed to have in mind for her.

But even as the thought ran through her mind, and she made an effort to bring this into action with her legs, Vivi remained still. She could not be certain whether Leander himself had stopped her, or whether something dark within herself simply wanted and needed to know what would happen next.

"Listen to me, Vivianne, listen and hear," Leander whispered, and Vivi obeyed. "Help me as I ask, and you will have the opportunity of your dreams. Give me just a little, and you will receive so much more in return."

Vivi swallowed, releasing a fast breath before she managed to reply.

"Give…give you what?"

"Child, you know the answer to this question, I have answered it already, and I have little time left to explain myself again." Leander's words, though reproving, remained patient. "Your blood, Vivianne. Only a small amount…enough to heal me, not enough to harm you. Enough blood to hurt only in the moment, for you, and yet it would help me immeasurably, insure my continuation. And in return, what you would receive…you have my word that it will be more powerful and wondrous than anything in your ordinary human life has ever encountered."

They were strong, convincing words he was using. But this was three times now Vivi had heard him make a bald statement of desire for her blood, and given the fact that he had also confirmed his nature as a vampire, this hardly seemed as harmless a request as Leander was trying to pass off.

She took a step back, cautious, half fearing that anything faster in motion would arouse his anger, and therefore a faster and more painful attack.

"I…thanks, but, um, I…I don't want to be a vampire. It's…it's hard enough to be human."

Leander's laugh sounded frail, crackling like a rusty pipe breaking under strain.

"You again misunderstand, child. No, that is not my intention. I would not curse you to such an existence as mine, certainly not after receiving help from you. As I've told you, your kind knows very little of truth in regards to mine, and part of what you do not know is our ability to grant wishes."

He seemed sincere. And somehow, the words seemed right. In a world where vampires existed, where they spoke with more gentleness and understanding than human girls her own age, it no longer seemed unlikely that Leander could be something of a genie as well.

"We can only grant one wish, one time," Leander continued, when Vivi did not immediately protest. "And I have not yet used my power to do so. If you choose to help me, Vivianne Lee…then I will choose you."

He paused again, as Vivi's eyes lifted up to the sunken approximation of his.

"A few drops of blood from you…and in return, you will receive one wish of whatever you may dream to occur. I can give you anything you would like. Power, wealth, status…ask for it, and it is ours."

Anything. He was offering her anything, anything at all. In a life where she had received so little, the prospect to Vivi was dizzying. She could hardly think of what she might choose…and if she were actually to receive it….

"Anything?"

"Anything," he confirmed. "For the price of your blood."

Vivi's heart beat so quickly she was certain that Leander could hear it, even with the distance between them. She wondered if he could smell her, if he had known of her approach long enough she saw him in the alley. Was it possible that he had come here specifically in wait of her, that he had somehow known that she alone would be willing to make this exchange?

Was she willing? And if she was, was this meant to be?

Her thoughts did not come into enough clarity to give Vivi an answer, but her body spoke for her. She stepped forward, her head inclining into the barest hint of a nod even as her breath let out. Leander's lips were not present enough to be able to move into a smile, but he bared sharpened teeth in an imitation in her direction.

"Thank you, Vivianne. I thank you for what you are giving, and I promise to give much in return."

He extended a shaking hand, skeletal in appearance and so pale that its veins appeared to make up nearly as much of its surface as its skin. Vivi did not want to touch him, but she allowed him to grasp her hand in his, shuddering at the coldness of his skin and the sudden, sharp feeling of nausea that came over her when they first made contact.

"Vivianne," he repeated, his claw-like fingers tightening over hers. "Your name is so fitting…Vivi, for life, and Anne, for grace. You give me the grace of extending my life. You see, Vivianne, that this is as you were meant to do. Your very name demands it."

There was no further warning. There was no time for Vivi to process his words and to ponder whether they were true; she had no idea of her name's meaning, or whether either of her parents had been aware of it when they chose it for her. She had barely the time to form a question in her mind, let alone speak it aloud, before Leander's surprisingly strong hand gave a hard tug, sending Vivi stumbling forward into the rigid curve of his arm. Then his free hand was taking hold of her face, his thumb pressed hard against her throat, as he forced Vivi's head to tilt back, baring her throat to him. He leaned in, and Vivi saw close up in one fleeting but unforgettable moment that his teeth were far longer and sharper even than she had first observed.

After, Vivi could not think of any words that were adequate to describe the experience of Leander's teeth breaking her flesh, of the feeling of her blood leaving her body to become part of his. She could not have given an estimate of how long it took, whether it was mere moments or as long as an hour of time that she remained in his unwavering hold, rigid with sharp, spiking pulsations of pain and weary confusion. Both in the moment and when he finally withdrew, holding her limp form steady until she could stand on her own, Vivi felt unreal, unemotional, and not quite human. Even as Leander stood near, calmly licking a speck of what she knew must be her own blood from lips that appeared to be reforming into a near human semblance before her eyes, Vivi could not quite seem to understand what she was seeing as anything resembling reality.

She watched, her eyes dull and faintly blurred, as Leander's skin faded in color, the burnt patches growing smaller and seeming to knit themselves back together into smooth, unbroken expanses of skin. His hands grew warm and more fleshy to the touch, his hair growing back full, dark, and soft-looking over his scalp, and even the dark holes of his eyes seemed nearly normal when he spoke to Vivi again.

"You see what you have done for me, Vivianne," he said, the dry rasp of his voice now strong and rich in tone. "I thank you, and now I give you as you ask. Tell me, what is it that you want most?"

Vivi's thoughts drifted back to the earlier part of her day, to the anxiety and dread she had endured even before her first steps inside the school building. She thought of the dismissive way that her classmates and even teachers looked past her when she walked by, the way that she herself felt forced to make herself no one, just to escape those who treated her like trash. She thought of the torturous gym periods when she was mocked and harassed for everything from her body to her shyness, all things she could not help, all things beyond her power to change. She felt the distancing wall of her shock begin to weaken as her long suppressed anger pushed against it, and then she spoke out the secret wish she had carried for weeks.

"I want to have power. Enough that no one would ever dare to try again to hurt me or embarrass me. Enough that no one could ever overlook or underestimate me again."

Leander's new lips broke into a wide smile, and he chuckled, his eyes sparking in a manner that Vivi did not understand, a way that made her uneasy to see. He touched her face once more, briefly this time, barely more than a fingertip against the curve of her cheek before he stepped away.

"You have what you wish, child, and may you enjoy your heart's desire, met."

Vivi didn't see how he left her. There was no magic swirl around him, no warning noise or shapeshifting. One moment she stood with Leander in the alley, and in the next, she stood alone.

She tested herself tentatively, flexing and then balling up her fists, but they felt no different than they had moments before. She took one step forward, then another, and her feet held her weight but showed no other abilities added on that she could feel. If any of this had been real, and if Leander had indeed kept his end of the bargain, she did not know when or how she would receive confirmation.

In the end Vivi simply turned out of the alleyway and shuffled her way back towards the main line of the storefronts, deciding to go back to school. Whether everything she had encountered was real, some elaborate dream, or a hallucination, it was still school hours, and she didn't have the energy left anymore to figure out what else to do or where to go with a day still stretched in front of her. In school, at least, she knew what she was expected to do and more or less what she could expect to happen.